


Reflection

by PumpkinSpiceHimbo



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Instability, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:47:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinSpiceHimbo/pseuds/PumpkinSpiceHimbo
Summary: Or maybe I'm just projecting.Just ignore me. I'll be fine.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Reflection

He tilted his head one way, watching as his hair fell away from his face, his sharp eyes contrasting terribly with his lazy smile. He tilted the other way, one eye disappearing entirely, his smile vanished and gaze cruelly indifferent. He stared at himself in the mirror, leaning close, as if somehow he could touch his reflection, feel its breath on his lips.

It should be the only kiss he needed, but it would be nothing but poison passed between them.

No one could hate him as much as he hated himself.

His fingers raked through his hair. He spent a long time looking effortless. He spent a long time making everything he did seem effortless. It was the only way he could cope with his shortcomings despite his attempts. If he didn’t care, no one else should either, right?

He could hear praise in the dusty whispers of the bricks, the ghosts of countless meaningless victims blown in on the drafts.

‘Gorgeous,’ they said, caressing him, drawing their hands across his body. He could feel his skin crawl, but he was used to it. There wasn’t a day he didn’t want to flay it from his bones and throw it to those who cared so much for it. Of all the things he tried not to care about with such fervor, he always found it easiest not to care about himself.

‘You have beautiful lips,’ one voice purred, and like a marionette he raised his hand to his mouth, numbly tracing the shape. He smiled, he grinned, he smirked, trying a dozen expressions, each practiced in the mirror while he should be saying his nightly prayers. He bared his teeth suddenly, inspecting them, how he hated how they sat in his gums. He neglected them when there wasn’t reason to ensure they were fresh, and yet he was never punished for it.

He was never punished for any of it.

Everything he avoided, everything he neglected, all the things he took for granted and all the things he threw aside, none of it mattered at all. Everything still stayed as it should, laid out more or less as expected, waiting for him to give up and step in line too. No matter how he tried, or how he neglected, it was always the same.

‘I could get lost in your eyes,’ they sighed, and he gazed into them again, neutral and cold. There was no warmth in them, and he doubted there ever had been. The flickering candlelight made them shine like gold, the eyes of an animal, of a predator, and he found them fitting. He would not be tamed, but broken, someday.

If he lived that long.

His lips moved beneath his fingers, quirking despite himself, the idea of dying young one that he just couldn’t help but be delighted by. It had never been far from his mind, not as far as he could remember. Even when his cheek was frozen to the stones of the well, even as the first blade found a home between his plate armour, nothing, not one thing, had ever failed to make him shiver in anticipation. There were times he wished he would just be killed, as tempers flared and spittle flew, as insults were hurled at him and his clothes caught against the wall that prevented his escape. His heart raced, in fear and in excitement. It could all be over if he lost that last shred of self-control, if the fear of retribution left him, if he let his body, so much bigger and stronger, move as it so wished. It could’ve ended so long ago, a simple snap of the neck, if only his kin wasn’t such a coward.

He was a coward too, he supposed. Of all the strange tonics he tasted, of all the blades that idly parted his flesh, he never found his own strength. Even in those moments, he was careless but arranged everything, including his failure, so that no one would take his attempts seriously. Just a bit too much to drink, a bad bit of beef, an overly oiled blade conveniently fumbled. Oh well.

Some day, death would find him, and it would part him from all of these things he should be so grateful for.

The ghosts tugged at him, hands slipping against his most guarded places, breathing chills up his spine. He endured as he always had, simply watching his own reflection, his mouth no longer smiling, a grim flat line. His breath was steady, controlled, even as he felt the panic welling in his chest. He could feel his pulse pounding, his ears ringing, the silent cacophony of his indiscretions deafening.

Everyone loved so much of him and he couldn’t stand a single thing.

He should feel guilty about his fantasies, about how he thought of the gnarled fingers tugging his hair and moaning into his ear, and how he should shear himself clean in their grasp. Would he be beautiful then, cut down like the prisoner he was? If he couldn’t hide behind it, arrange it to their whims, be the creature they all so desired?

What if he drew a blade across his face instead? So handsome, such a charming smile, could he be more appealing with even more grinning red mouths dotting his face? Disfigured, would his eyes still captivate?

Of course. They didn’t care about how he looked. Not really.

He had a purpose.

That was the truth about him that he hated the absolute most. Even if he had the courage, the momentary impulse to take it into his hands, anything short of death would still be far short of his goals. His body, his breath, his blood, that was what they truly craved. To wield the Lance. To stand at head of the army against invaders. To plunge himself into his duties again, and again, and again, until he collapsed, exhausted and empty and worthless, until next time.

He thought of throwing himself down the stairs sometimes, fingertips grazing wooden banisters or laid stone masonry. If he just did it, just had the strength, just once, perhaps he would accomplish something good. Shatter himself beyond mending, crippled and useless. It sounded so freeing, but he knew that would never be the end of it.

They would strap him down to chair or horse, ply him with sweet smoke and stiff drink, and trust that the creature would do as it was meant, just until they had a new one to fill the role.

And beyond that, beneath it all, he couldn’t bear any of those realities if they came to pass.

Even as he traced the lines he wished to carve, even as he bent his limbs until they shook with pain, even as he held his breath, praying for the courage to act, he knew that he could not bear anything of the sort.

Excitement, anticipation, and fear.

The fear of becoming useless, of being unnecessary, of no one assigning him value. If he was not beautiful, if he could not captivate, if he refused his calling as the last of his line, what good was he? If he contorted himself, if he could sit no saddle, if no lance could be strapped to his limbs, if it would not twitch and scream inside of him as it fed on his self-loathing, why was he even alive? If his promises were broken, if he was no longer a foil for success, a cautionary tale to friend and foe alike, would he cease to be spoken of at all?

He did not fear death, nor obscurity, but a life robbed of what he so resented would be empty, in the end. He had to embrace it, punish himself where all others fail, bring about his own retribution when no one cared enough to call for it. The things that made him sick, the things that were his only purpose, they were his. His fingers grazed bone and it called to him. Lay waste, child, to all before you, and to yourself.

“Enough.”

And he was alone again, demons banished, no fell blade to taunt him.

He was moving through molasses, his touch sticky with sweat, his breath insubstantial. His racing heart slowed, skipped, and was calm. The danger had passed, for now, for tonight.

He tilted his head and his hair fell from his face, save a few pieces that clung to his tears.


End file.
